Surface Detail

“No. I want the news, good or bad. Call Sulbazghi, get him to come too.” He looked behind. They were a lot closer to the tower to their rear than the one ahead. They’d disembark there. He put the barge into full astern. “Sorry ladies, gentlemen,” he shouted, over questions and protests. “Duty calls. I must go, but I shall return. To collect my winnings, I imagine. Sapultride, you’re captain.”

“Splendid! Do I get a special hat?”

“So, have we decided exactly what it is?” Veppers asked. He, Jasken, Dr. Sulbazghi and Xingre, the Jhlupian, were in the shielded, windowless drawing room in the sub-basement of the Espersium mansion which Veppers used for especially secret meetings or delicate negotiations.

Somewhat to Veppers’ surprise, it was Xingre, the usually reticent Jhlupian, who spoke, the translation filtering from the silvery cushion the alien sat upon, voice pitched to the scratchy, tinkly tones it favoured. “I believe it to be consistent with an inter-membranial full-spectrum cranial-event/state germinatory processor matrix with singular condensate-collapse indefinite-distance signalling ability, Level Eight (Player) in manufacture, bilateral carboniform pan-human sub-design.”

Veppers stared at the twelve-limbed creature. Its three stalk eyes stared back. One dipped down, let itself be cleaned and wetted by its mouth parts, then flipped jauntily upright again. The alien had returned with the thing that had been in the girl’s head, the thing that might or might not be a neural lace. Xingre had had its own techs analyse the device using Jhlupian technology.

If Veppers was being honest with himself he would have to admit that over the handful of days that the device had been with the Jhlupians he had quite happily let thoughts of the thing and its implications slip from his mind. Jasken had been unable to establish any more useful facts about it beyond what they already knew and on the couple of occasions they had talked about it they had largely convinced themselves that it must be a fake, or just something else, maybe alien, maybe not, that had somehow found its way into the furnace.

The alien extended one bright green limb towards Sulbazghi, giving him the device back inside a little transparent cylinder. The doctor looked at Veppers, who nodded. Sulbazghi poured the shimmering, blue-grey thing into his palm.

“My dear Xingre,” Veppers said after a moment, with a tolerant smile. “I think I understood every single word you said there, but, sadly, only as single words. Put together like that they made no sense at all. What are you talking about?” He looked at Jasken, who was frowning mightily.

“I told you,” the alien said. “Probably it is what remains of an inter-membranial full-spectrum cranial-event/state germinatory-”

“Yes, yes,” Veppers said. “As I say, I heard the words.”

“Let me translate,” said Sulbazghi. “It’s a Culture neural lace.”

“You’re sure, this time?” Jasken asked, looking from the doctor to the alien.

“Certainly Level Eight (Player) in manufacture,” Xingre said.

“But who put it in her?” Veppers asked. “Definitely not the clinicians?”

Sulbazghi shook his head. “Definitely not.”

“Agreed,” the Jhlupian said. “Not.”

“Then who? What? Who could have?”

“Nobody else that we know of,” Sulbazghi said.

“Level Eight (Player) manufacture is absolutely certain,” Xingre said. “Level Eight (Player) so-called ‘Culture’ manufacture likely to ratio of one hundred and forty-three out of one hundred and forty-four in total.”

“Almost certainly, in other words,” the doctor said. “I suspected it was from the start. It’s Culture.”

“Only to ratio of one hundred and forty-three out of one hundred and forty-four chances,” Xingre pointed out again. “Additionally, device implantation might have occurred at any time from immediately subsequent to birth event to within last two local years approximately but not closer to present. Probably. Also; only remains of. Very most fine cilia-like twiggings likely burned off in furnace.”

“But the kicker,” Sulbazghi said, “is in the one-time signalling capacity.”

Xingre bounced once on its silvery cushion, the Jhlupian equivalent of a nod. “Singular condensate-collapse bi-event indefinite-distance signalling ability,” it said. “Used.”

“Signalling?” Veppers said. He wasn”t sure if he was simply being slow here or if a deep part of him just didn’t want to know what might be the truth. He already had the feeling he usually got before people delivered particularly bad news. “It didn’t signal her…?” He heard his own voice trail off as he looked again at the tiny, nearly weightless thing that lay in his palm.

“Mind-state,” Jasken said. “It might have signalled her mindstate, her soul, to somewhere else. Somewhere in the Culture.”

“Malfunction rate of said process betrays ratio of equal to or higher than four out of one hundred and forty-four in total,” Xingre said.